Three BU students, one senior and two juniors, share their wild ride in Sydney, Australia.

Main Menu

Aboriginal Australia: Must Be Dreaming

Not only is Australia amazing us with all of the adventures it’s offering, it’s amazing us with its own culture. It’s a weird feeling, learning a new culture. Weird, yet definitely exciting. For this post, I figured I’d share a huge part of Australian culture and history.

Brianna and Lindsay, as Brianna mentioned in her last post, are they’re taking a module of program director Mark’s Australian Culture & Society class that focuses on sports in Australia. My module class is focused on Aboriginal Australia, taught by an aborigine herself, Jennifer Newman (yes, yes, even she knows her name doesn’t make her sound aboriginal at all).

I signed up for the module (the modules are basically a two week spinoff class to focus in one on subject we’re interested in) hoping to get more in touch with the Australian culture that pervades the land. I wanted to understand the history of these people that have been on this land since the beginning of time (literally). More selfishly, I really just wanted to become more of a local by knowing more about what makes Australia…Australia.

The class first met on 9AM Wednesday morning at Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park, where we met Jennifer. She then took us on a tour around a bit of Sydney Harbour, all the while explaining what certain areas spoke about or represented the aboriginal culture of Sydney. Sydney and the Botany Bay area (just south of Sydney) was where the First Fleet of men and women from Great Britain (who were mostly convicts) arrived in 1788 after about three-quarters of a year of sailing. This makes the area where we walked that much more important to the aboriginal history, for the soil we walked was the soil the aboriginals stood on when they first saw these white “creatures” sailing toward them, not knowing what the spirits had in store for them.

A: Archibald Fountain, Hyde ParkB: Martin Place, where some of the first settlement homes were built.C: The Domain, a public speaking areaD: Art Gallery of NSW, where aboriginal artwork wasn’t allowed in until the 1950sE: Royal Botanic GardensF: Farm Cove, where aboriginals first saw the First FleetG & H: Sydney Opera House, different marks of the changing shoreline can be viewed hereI: Harbour Wharf: Stopped here to listen to an aboriginal play the didgeridooJ: Museum of Contemporary Art

Many religions have their own period of creation in the history of the planet, where plants, animals, and man were, well, created. Aboriginals are no different. They call the period of creation the Dreamtime, or Dreaming. Essentially, the aboriginal spirit ancestors came down to the planet and marked the land where each ancestor’s people would live.

It’s fasciniating to think that these people who’ve been on this planet since the beginning of time (according to their stories) still maintain this culture that relies so heavily on their spirit ancestors. They guide them on whatever path they may choose in life. They help them remember their roots.

Aboriginal art depicting the spirit ancestors.

Aboriginal is actually not what aboriginals call themselves. The word was used by the British, just so they could give these native Australians a name. Some don’t like to be called aboriginal, and that’s why. This module (and it’s not even over yet!) has opened my eyes to see a more colorful picture of the planet. Each culture and background has its own story. And no two stories are the same. We’re all different as humans, but we’re all uniquely bound together as one because of it.

My thanks to Australia for helping me come to this conclusion. Man, I love this country.

In other quick news, our third/newest (and definitely most fun) video blog will be up this week! We’ll show you our adventures at Luna Park and oh so much more. Next week is our program field trip to Melbourne, and right after that we’ll be climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and heading off to Surf Camp! Lots of excitement coming up – stay with us!

7 responses to “Aboriginal Australia: Must Be Dreaming”

Or (with the 608) you can use those speakers like a stereo in another room.
Here’s the right process of the best way to hook up the multichannel speakers.
The prices of those units have gone spiraling down making it
easy for almost anyone to acquire these speakers for their homes.

The sign that the intelli-clean does not work is that
when you press the intelli-clean button on the handle, there is no difference
if it is on or off, it does not change suction. And while they are extremely efficient machines that clean large areas in record time, they are also easy to operate for that spilled ashtray or other debris that
needs to be picked up quickly. Of course, because a vacuum
appliance is very important in our lives, we must do all we can to make sure that
service continues for a longer period of time.

In this way, the hydroxyl radical is sort of nature’s atmospheric “scrubbing bubbles. In general the ionic and germicidal purifiers emit little to no noise, they are compact in size and best of all- no filters to change. Instead, these products seem to be nothing more than fancy scented oil diffusers.

But then it is possible to also just keep adding tracks and recording
onto them while listening (in headphones naturally) towards
the earlier track(s) playing back. Many speaker companies
also sell re-foam kits, diaphragms and much more.
Spend time measuring your distances relating to the speakers and your receiver and constantly get at the very least 10% more wire than you will need.